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Even if you don't like Suguha as a character, she at least serves as a plot device that creates a journey that leads to a conclusion. But there's more to plot than just the physical plot of going from Point A to Point B (although she contributes to that too!). Indeed, Sugou could probably be replaced by another plot device that manages to prevent Asuna's release if you really wanted to. The story of Suguha's heartbreak requires Suguha.

Suguha's story has every element of a story that fully stands on its on. It's just intertwined in this story so that two connected stories are being told at the same time. You can't lop off one of the two stories and be like "this one doesn't matter!". It's as much a part of this story as everything else.

Alright, now that I've calmed down a bit I'll make an admission: Suguha's story is fine enough. When untangled from the Saving Asuna plot thread, it stands on its own. However, I'm still not a fan of the thread's existence due to how poorly its executed.

I'm sorry, but I have to bring up GGO semi-spoilers again because it's the best example I can come up with. Just can the whole post if you'd rather not read them.

Spoiler for Begin:

For all intents and purposes, the premise to ALO and GGO is the same - something happens in the game world and Kirito runs off to do something about it. There is also a female player of some description who has her own lengthy plot thread about something or another. Despite this core similarity, I greatly like the GGO arc and greatly dislike the ALO arc. And no, it's not because of the nature of the GGO's thread...well, not completely anyways.

The problem is that in ALO, Kirito's story interacts with Sugu's story (2 year wait, meeting Asuna, etc), but Sugu's story has little to no interaction with Kirito's story throughout the middle of ALO. Yes, there's the whole comforting Kazuto part at the beginning and near the end there are the big reveal and <preemptive spoiler redacting> but the middle chunk really is just a greatly elongated chunk of Lyfa falling in love with the OP stranger. This isn't to say that nothing relevant to Sugu's story happens in the middle, but from my perspective, nothing done *by* Sugu's story interacts with Kirito's.

In GGO though, it's a case of two plot threads that begin as unrelated, collide due to plot devices, actively interact with each other and then resolve together. Emphasis on the with each other part. It isn't just Kirito's actions that have an effect on the other plot thread - the other plot thread also provides interactions *throughout* the story that resolve Kirito's thread. Another point I'd like to bring up is that GGO's female protag is, in my opinion, worth more than a plot device to Kirito's thread. The constant interactions also come in the form of human to human communication instead of just plot pointers - or running back to my own words, you can't just replace the female protag's story with a bunch of coincidences and still leave Kirito's plot intact.

The second reason I dislike Sugu's story is that throughout the middle of the respective plots, the writing ends up causing both plot threads to distract from each other instead of being complements. Going back to GGO, whenever there is a jump between plot threads, it feels as though the developments are ones that either directly affect or else help bring definition to the other thread. ALO just feels like we're hopping between brains because we can. I even dislike the Asuna-only parts for this reason, despite me considering the Save Asuna thread to be the primary one. Sure it's nice to know that the reason why Asuna and 199 others went missing because of Sugou's science project, but that knowledge doesn't tell me anything about why Kirito or Lyfa/Sugu are doing what they're doing. I'm not sure it had to take an entire chapter just to prove that point and spend an extended period of time trying to emphasize how horrible Sugou is - it could have been much shorter and still served its purpose.

And speaking of justifications, I also feel that far too much of ALO is spent either pulling plot devices out of seemingly thin air, or spending huge chunks of time trying to justify pulling plot devices out of thin air. I can't elaborate further though because then I'm walking on tons of ALO spoilers.

TL: DR
I like the beginning and end of ALO, but absolutely despise how the middle of the story was executed.

I'm sorry, but I have to bring up GGO semi-spoilers again because it's the best example I can come up with. Just can the whole post if you'd rather not read them.

I moved your post here because obviously you put some time into it, but you simply can't post anything about future novel content in anime threads at all.

Anyway, I'm not intending to participate in this thread for fear of other spoilers, although I did read your post (though my ability to validate the comparisons are limited because I don't know the novels). What I can say is that a) I think you're missing some of the connections between the two plot threads in the middle section (like, for example, the visit to the hospital: very key), and b) part of the thing you dislike is inherent to a doomed romance by its very nature. It's an emotion-driven plot, not an action-driven one. They are indeed being developed as parallel perspectives that are, for a time, at conflict with one another, and the growing gap between the perspectives is part of the point. I understand why you don't like it, but I think a lot of it is necessary to develop the two threads in parallel and to give Suguha's emotions some degree of credibility. It's not something they could resolve in a moment.

I'm not saying they couldn't have done something differently. But I'm not prepared yet to say that what they did was bad or poorly-realized for what the theme of the overall arc is -- mostly because I need to wait for the arc to finish.

Alright, now that I've calmed down a bit I'll make an admission: Suguha's story is fine enough. When untangled from the Saving Asuna plot thread, it stands on its own. However, I'm still not a fan of the thread's existence due to how poorly its executed.

I'm sorry, but I have to bring up GGO semi-spoilers again because it's the best example I can come up with. Just can the whole post if you'd rather not read them.

Spoiler for Begin:

For all intents and purposes, the premise to ALO and GGO is the same - something happens in the game world and Kirito runs off to do something about it. There is also a female player of some description who has her own lengthy plot thread about something or another. Despite this core similarity, I greatly like the GGO arc and greatly dislike the ALO arc. And no, it's not because of the nature of the GGO's thread...well, not completely anyways.

The problem is that in ALO, Kirito's story interacts with Sugu's story (2 year wait, meeting Asuna, etc), but Sugu's story has little to no interaction with Kirito's story throughout the middle of ALO. Yes, there's the whole comforting Kazuto part at the beginning and near the end there are the big reveal and <preemptive spoiler redacting> but the middle chunk really is just a greatly elongated chunk of Lyfa falling in love with the OP stranger. This isn't to say that nothing relevant to Sugu's story happens in the middle, but from my perspective, nothing done *by* Sugu's story interacts with Kirito's.

In GGO though, it's a case of two plot threads that begin as unrelated, collide due to plot devices, actively interact with each other and then resolve together. Emphasis on the with each other part. It isn't just Kirito's actions that have an effect on the other plot thread - the other plot thread also provides interactions *throughout* the story that resolve Kirito's thread. Another point I'd like to bring up is that GGO's female protag is, in my opinion, worth more than a plot device to Kirito's thread. The constant interactions also come in the form of human to human communication instead of just plot pointers - or running back to my own words, you can't just replace the female protag's story with a bunch of coincidences and still leave Kirito's plot intact.

The second reason I dislike Sugu's story is that throughout the middle of the respective plots, the writing ends up causing both plot threads to distract from each other instead of being complements. Going back to GGO, whenever there is a jump between plot threads, it feels as though the developments are ones that either directly affect or else help bring definition to the other thread. ALO just feels like we're hopping between brains because we can. I even dislike the Asuna-only parts for this reason, despite me considering the Save Asuna thread to be the primary one. Sure it's nice to know that the reason why Asuna and 199 others went missing because of Sugou's science project, but that knowledge doesn't tell me anything about why Kirito or Lyfa/Sugu are doing what they're doing. I'm not sure it had to take an entire chapter just to prove that point and spend an extended period of time trying to emphasize how horrible Sugou is - it could have been much shorter and still served its purpose.

And speaking of justifications, I also feel that far too much of ALO is spent either pulling plot devices out of seemingly thin air, or spending huge chunks of time trying to justify pulling plot devices out of thin air. I can't elaborate further though because then I'm walking on tons of ALO spoilers.

TL: DR
I like the beginning and end of ALO, but absolutely despise how the middle of the story was executed.

Well I totally have to agree with you that in ALO both story strings have no connection at all, which leads to the problem that they are changeable and not very original. However if you would cut the storyline from Sugu, you would have nothing to fill in the gap between the beginning and the end of ALO, as you would have to fill it up with reasonable content to keep the readers entertained.

Nobody reads a book for its ending (unless it is the end of a big book series) as otherwise you could simply start at the beginning and then move forward to the end

The problem with the reasonable contant is what to use? Unlike SAO you can't put in normal daily MMO practices like leveling or searching for new weapons, because in SAO even that could mean your death, while in ALO that could just end in your respawn. So the whole tension of the plot is away.

There are also no bossmonsters in ALO (at least until the end of the arc), no restriction to where u can go before solving several quests and so on. So your last string would be to put something in that doesn't have anything to do with the VRMMO world and well the easiest story would be a lovestory .

I have to agree that that wasn't a very good choice but he has at least learned from his mistakes.

I've been wondering......does people really reallllllly hate ALO arc? seeing from Vsin's post I can make a conclusion that some people think the arc is so bad because of how Suguha's story and Kirito's story interwined on such a random events(correct me if I'm wrong)?

While the ALO arc is my least favorite out of all of them, I've become to warm up to it a bit with the anime adaption and a fresh perspective. Suguha specifically, didn't really care for her the first time around, but now, eh...

Although I agree that GGO contained a much better intertwining of narratives. Hooray for author development!

I've been wondering......does people really reallllllly hate ALO arc? seeing from Vsin's post I can make a conclusion that some people think the arc is so bad because of how Suguha's story and Kirito's story interwined on such a random events(correct me if I'm wrong)?

I don't think people necessarily hate the ALO arc, because it does have its good points. But yes, many people believe that the ALO arc is for the most part inferior to the other arcs, especially to the subsequent GGO and MR, because of less cohesive writing and inferior characterization.

I don't think people necessarily hate the ALO arc, because it does have its good points. But yes, many people believe that the ALO arc is for the most part inferior to the other arcs, especially to the subsequent GGO and MR, because of less cohesive writing and inferior characterization.

I see....well I'll admit that ALO's has quite a number of inferiority to the other arcs not just limited to GGO and MR. But personally those kind of things doesn't really matter to me since what I'm expecting from the story is the enjoyment aspect not to look for things such as inferior aspects and in turn to dislike the respective arc. As long as the story still gives enjoyment, I'm fine with it and I think ALO still gives enjoyment despite the lacking in some aspects of the story. Also criticizing ALO arc at this point won't achieve anything worth it since ALO is one of the finished arcs and there are already other arcs continuing it. To view it from the overally-wise, it all still ends good.

I see....well I'll admit that ALO's has quite a number of inferiority to the other arcs not just limited to GGO and MR. But personally those kind of things doesn't really matter to me since what I'm expecting from the story is the enjoyment aspect not to look for things such as inferior aspects and in turn to dislike the respective arc. As long as the story still gives enjoyment, I'm fine with it and I think ALO still gives enjoyment despite the lacking in some aspects of the story. Also criticizing ALO arc at this point won't achieve anything worth it since ALO is one of the finished arcs and there are already other arcs continuing it. To view it from the overally-wise, it all still ends good.

Yes, I do agree with you. The entire SAO series as a whole is great in my opinion because of its enjoyment factor. Hell, SAO was the first light novel series I've ever read and I enjoyed every single arc when I first read it. It was only when I went back to re-read each volume and tried to rank each arc that I began to notice the inherent flaws in each of them. However, I don't believe that these flaws detract from the enjoyment that the entire series has to offer, though some people might disagree.

So looks like it's pretty safe to say...... Tonkii has definitely been cut out now... ep 23 was the last possible episode for it to maybe show up. Dammit, if only the show was 26 or 27 episodes long... that part was my favorite part of ALO

So looks like it's pretty safe to say...... Tonkii has definitely been cut out now... ep 23 was the last possible episode for it to maybe show up. Dammit, if only the show was 26 or 27 episodes long... that part was my favorite part of ALO

It's better to show Tonkii in MR later on(if there's going to be season 3 that is). Since Tonkii is quite a spoiler so needs to be cut.

They will most likely combine the Tonki story with the Excalibur SS. This also helps fill up a future season as there were some issues with content that fit neatly into a future season. Now we can have GGO, Tonki ,Excalibur SS and MR. That should be able to fill out another double cour season.

Yes, I do agree with you. The entire SAO series as a whole is great in my opinion because of its enjoyment factor. Hell, SAO was the first light novel series I've ever read and I enjoyed every single arc when I first read it. It was only when I went back to re-read each volume and tried to rank each arc that I began to notice the inherent flaws in each of them. However, I don't believe that these flaws detract from the enjoyment that the entire series has to offer, though some people might disagree.

Even for me SAO has been the first LN series. And the anime is too good. Can watch episodes again and again.

They will most likely combine the Tonki story with the Excalibur SS. This also helps fill up a future season as there were some issues with content that fit neatly into a future season. Now we can have GGO, Tonki ,Excalibur SS and MR. That should be able to fill out another double cour season.

Who knows? Perhaps a Second Season's Episode 26 will end with the opening of Alicization, and Kirito getting injected/stabbed by Laughing Coffin's last free member.

I can see the rage a lot of people will have when they watch this episode. I wonder at which scene this episode will end? I hope the annoying scenes with Sugou will just go fast so that we can see the reunion of Kirito and Asuna in the real world at the end of the episode.